Our post-wedding-ceremony life isn’t anywhere near to relax and honeymoon at romantic places such as panama city beach condos, but hectic which involves going back forth Kuching and JPN to settle our marriage certificate, and working hard so that we can spend during the process of getting the certificate.

The first trip was on October last year, when I came to Sibu to prepare our wedding stuffs. We took the midnight bus and arrived Kuching on early morning. Went to Indonesia Consulate only to hear the staff saying that law has changed since September and they couldn’t release the particular letter for inter-religion marriage. We were asked to go back Indonesia and settled it there (but inter-religion marriage is an issue too back in my country).

The second trip was on December last year, not long after our actual-wedding-day. We took the midnight bus again and went to the consulate confidently. Good news, religion was no longer a problem (since I’ve converted). Bad news, one of my documents was lack of ONE stamp from some authority back in Medan!

Some more the same lady staff who we met on the 1st trip insisted that she had given the list-of-necessary-docs to us and that she remembered my boy’s face but not mine. Wtf? We quickly refreshed her memory that she never gave the list to us but shoo-ed us away to settle it in Indonesia.

In the end, I had my parent helping me in getting the necessary stamps on the particular doc and mail to me via DHL. Waited to get that doc for almost 3 weeks cause it was holiday season (Christmas & new year) and the authority was in the mood of want-to-work-yet-don’t-want-to-work. Ugh. And oh, that stamps on the particular docs didn’t come free-of-charge. It wasn’t cheap either. It’s all about MONEY when it comes to settle stuffs in Indonesia. -__-”

The third trip was on last Sunday after we got the DHL mail on Saturday. The Consulate was opened at 9am and the crowds already waited since 8am or so. It went oh-so-smooth. We shown our complete documents and the lady staff (not the one that we saw on previous two trips) typed in the necessary info. They have new (computer) system which seems to be quite effective – thumbs up to the gov.

We finished around 11am sth and had to wait for the Surat Keterangan – which cost us freaking RM70 just for a piece of paper with some authority signature (see above pic) – to be released on 3pm or 4pm. To kill the time, we walked to the nearest shop blocks under the hot sun. It was around 6 minutes walk but it felt like 6 hours due to the hot sunny weather.

We had brunch at Sugarbun. After filled in our stomach, we were bloody sleep already (cannot sleep well in the bus cause some passengers were snoring so badly) and wanting to go for body massage but ended up spending 2 hours at internet cafe. Time passed and we quickly walked back to the consulate. Once we got the letter, we were super duper relieved knowing that one puzzle is solved. After that, we bought ticket back home, depart on 9pm and arrived home at 3am. Super tiring.

On the next day (tuesday), we went to JPN (Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara) to settle the next step of the marriage registration. It was a long tiring day. Cut the story short, we had to wait for 14 days for don’t-know-what-documents-from-Putrajaya and another 21 days (For putting up the marriage info on the board. Local people can pay for RM100 to skip this waiting period but foreigner cannot. KNS!). After that only we can choose a date to sign the marriage certificate. I’m afraid it will only happen after Chinese New Year period. Sigh.

After that, we need to go back Medan to file for the marriage. Then, apply for 3 months social visa so I can stay in Malaysia longer while waiting for the spouse visa to be settled. It’s all about waiting (time) and money.

It’s not easy to achieve this togetherness.